Urban room No. 1: Velika avlija Laure Papo

Figure 72. Urban room No. 1: Velika avlija Laure Papo aerial photos.

Overview

Velika avlija Laure Papo63 (Figure 72) is located at the threshold of the organic urban pattern of Ottoman Bascarsija and the Austro-Hungarian regulated urban grid. The site’s northern border is delineated by Mula Mustafe Baseskije Street, a well-known and high-traffic street that separates the flat, commercial zone of Bascarsija from the slopes of the

mahalas (the old oriental residential neighbourhoods). The toponym Velika avlija translates as the Great Courtyard (or Garden). This particular avlija is dedicated to the writer Laura Papo Bohoreta, and is part of the legacy of the old Sephardic residential quarter Sijavus-pasine daire, which disappeared in a fire in 1879 (Bejtic, 1973). The site is part of the compound of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest synagogue, known as the Old Temple, which dates from 1581, and the adjacent New Temple synagogue, built in 1870. The two historical buildings have been converted into a museum and gallery respectively. The analysed area measures 27 x 50 metres. It opens towards the street on its northern side, and its outer boundaries are defined by the modest, rear facades of the multi-storey buildings in the structured Austro-Hungarian city block. These facades are juxtaposed with smaller buildings on its western edge, which echo the oriental urban pattern of Bascarsija. The external edge of the eastern city block contains a row of vibrant shops and tourist attractions, while

the envelope of buildings to its south encompasses the frontal facades of Ferhadija, the old town’s most frequented pedestrian street. The two synagogues appear as freestanding solids, asymmetrically placed in the void, and are the site’s key architectural and cultural highlights. The small plaza in front of the New Temple Gallery features two tall poplars, several pines and a chestnut tree, as well as two small green areas with benches placed in a circular form.

Site Assessment

Despite its small size, the analysed site has multiple functions: 1) transport/circulation, in the form of street-level parking spaces on the site’s northern side along Mula Mustafe Baseskije Street, and vehicular access to private houses along its western edge; 2) patches of green space within the plaza in front of the New Temple Gallery, which act as a small civic square; and 3) communal space, consisting of a congested area of public facilities, small cafes and bars on its eastern side, which adjoin the secluded synagogue courtyard. Because of their specific morphology and position, the rear and lateral areas around the New Temple building are functionless and inactive, and therefore display characteristics of undefined space (Table 15). The entire site, consisting of six typological categories, is characterised by functional heterogeneity and spatial discontinuity. Its urban activity varies in response to its unbalanced programmatic scheme, from the high activity of the commercial facilities in its eastern part, especially during the summer tourist season, to its semi-active central plaza area, and the predominantly inactive parking areas and pocket-like spaces around the New Temple Gallery. The degree of enclosure increases from north to south, in relation to urban density. The two pedestrian access passages from the south and the eastern void at the back of the Old Temple are highly enclosed, while the remaining area is open only towards Mula Mustafa Baseskija Street. The overall

urban atmosphere of the site is highly introverted and intimate, and its human-scale proportions, enclosure, memory of place, and patterns of use insinuate the modes of its potential transformation into an urban room. Any intervention strategy in this urban void should therefore tackle the identified challenges (primarily its heterogeneity and fragmentation, which affect its general visibility and legibility) in order to attain spatial coherence and a permeation of functions and activities.

Table 15. Identification matrix: key attributes of the Velika avlija Laure Papo. Source: Authors

I. HISTORY

Medieval Ottoman Habsburg Early Yugoslav

Soc. Yugoslav Contemporary

II. ATTRIBUTES

Typology Scale Enclosure Activity Accessibility Atmosphere

Civic/Green/ Communal/ Transport Small Semienclosed Passive Accessible and cond. accessible Introverted

III. TRANSITIONS

Socialist–Capitalist Low–High-tech Formal–informal Global–Sitespecific Oriental–Western

Intervention strategy

The objective of the intervention strategy for this site requires its partial reprogramming to reclaim the public space. This implies pedestrianisation of the northern part of the site, accompanied by the repositioning of its parking area to an alternative location. In this way, the overall site will become more open and perceptible from Mula Mustafe Baseskije Street, which would alter the view from the tram and from the buildings on the opposite side of the street. The undefined areas in terms of public-private ownership and accessibility behind and around the New Temple Gallery should be repurposed. To find the right function for these fragmented

voids, an intervention strategy should be initiated by the public authorities and joined by citizen activists and experts in urban planning and interior design. These stakeholders should use pilot projects to find the most suitable and flexible long-term solution through the methodology of tactical urbanism. The northern part of the site is its entrance sequence, which could incorporate programmatic interventions such as pop-up cafes and arts and crafts shops, accompanied by new seating options. Reactivation of the spaces at the rear of the site, adjacent to the small building structure of the private houses, could involve slight functional upgrades to target the local community, such as the installation of small playgrounds, with smart interactive tools. The legibility and visibility of the civic square and the preservation of the green infrastructure could be enhanced by establishing the New Temple Gallery as the site’s main focal point. This could be achieved by redistributing the urban furniture into smaller groups that lead the eye towards the gallery’s entrance and provide seating for individuals and smaller groups. The experience of a cohesive urban public space could be further accentuated by a unified pavement that includes the featured design leitmotifs, to unite the area visually. The design of the urban furniture, lighting and ephemeral structures for this urban room should reflect the memory and cultural background of the space in terms of its size, shape and materialisation, thus adhering to the site-specific design criterion of enhancing the genius loci. Activating the corridors and passages of this urban room, located at the back of the site, could involve placing discrete but poignant urban art installations either at pavement level or as an “urban ceiling”. These small spatial sequences would have their own narratives within the overall transformation scenario. The memory of the place and the idea of domesticity conveyed in the Velika avlija toponym, which is reminiscent of the history of ancient Sephardic residential quarters, is a valuable source of inspiration for the future transformation and reactivation of this urban room.

Figure 73b. Velika avlija Laure Papo urban room illustration in case of application the described intervention strategies.